In 2020, the outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic caused hardship to consumers, businesses, and the global economy at large as countries enacted lockdowns to manage the health crisis. Today, the virus still holds the world in its grip. The significant impacts on the global tech industry, and industries that surround it, continue to develop as the pandemic continues.
COVID-19 and supply chain disruptions
Among the most pertinent and long-lasting effects are shortages disrupting the global supply chain. The initial outbreak in China impacted facilities producing parts and components, which caused shortages of many different goods. Among the most prominent shortages are semiconductors, which are needed in many other industries. For example, fully assembled cars cannot be sold until chips arrive. Notably, North America was the region with the largest number of disruptive events in these terms in 2021. Although supply chain disruptions still make the news regularly in late 2021, around 26 percent of shippers indicate their supply chain is already back to normal.
Tech supporting the WFH experiment
At the same time, employees around the world have been sent home for work to reduce the chances of transmitting the virus in the office. In order to implement work from home and remote work policies, organizations relied on various technical equipment and applications. These include laptops as well as software like Microsoft Teams or Zoom to connect employees with each other and customers. Unsurprisingly, Microsoft Teams saw a surge in daily active users and video conferencing company Zoom experienced a sustained surge in stock prices.
IT infrastructure and digital transformation
These capabilities, however, could not have been realized without the underlying IT infrastructure to support the necessary steps leading towards accelerated digital transformation. Among the most prominent of these are cloud computing services which are the backbone of remote work setups as they render the issue of geographical location of users redundant. Next, several business-critical apps and unified communication solutions run on this infrastructure to support a distributed workforce.
The Bottom Line
Although the global economy is slowly recovering from the overall impact of the coronavirus outbreak, governments remain cautious and assess how to manage the crisis continuously. Thankfully, technology can help here, too. For example, vaccine passport apps help verify a vaccination and serve as travel passports, thereby making save travel possible again. Further, Corona tracing apps help break chains of infection and thereby contain the virus.
For further information about the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, please visit our dedicated Fact and Figures page.
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